With all the postponement of fixtures in recent weeks, wildcarding in gamewek 8 isn’t the worst of ideas. In fact, if you had your wildcard active in GW7 and you’ve been tinkering with your team, your team has probably increased in value.
After a below par GW6, we do think the break in GW7 was needed. We have now had enough time to think and come up with different strategies and wildcard drafts that could be of use to those looking to wildcard in GW8.
In this article we’d be sharing our various GW8 wildcard drafts and we’d also be providing answers to some questions being asked in the FPL world by FPL managers.
Should I use my wildcard or Free hit in GW8
Wildcarding in GW8 would be the better way to go this gameweek. And the reason is that we are going to get two more wildcards later on this season(one during the World Cup break and another after GW18), but the Free hit chip you’d only get it once.
It’s going to be a long season and there would still be postponed, games and double gameweeks where using your free hit would be more effective.
GW8 right now just has three games that have been postponed and that’s not a lot. You could easily use your wildcard to get out of this situation or you could take a hit.
Remember there are going to be rescheduled games and double gameweeks would come up and you’d need your free hit when these things happen.
If you want to free hit this week, then you can check out this article:
GW8 team selection and free hit team: transfer targets and scout picks
Feel free to also check out our complete GW8 guide:
If you’re looking for some spicy differentials for your wildcard team then check out this article:
GW8 differential picks: rising through the FPL ranks
Should you still go big at the back
Well, going big at the back as its advantages and its flaws. So far this season, we’ve seen both. We’ve seen the benefit of going for numerous premium defenders and we’ve reaped the benefit.
However, we do think it is time for us to start moving away from this season’s template team. We’ve seen budget strikers and midfielders perform way better than most premium defenders and for that reason, we think it would be much better to have a balanced team.
It’d be better to have a mixture of both premium defenders and a couple of budget forwards and midfielders. As you keep on reading, you’d see how our GW8 wildcard drafts shape up.
Is it time to move Mo Salah on
Well, yes it is time to move Mo Salah on. The Liverpool midfielder has always been a great FPL option, but recently his form hasn’t been all that great.
Mo Salah is valued at £13.0m and you’d be expecting him to be putting elite numbers to justify his price tag, but the truth is he hasn’t been doing that and that’s really poor.
It also doesn’t make so much sense holding on to a 13.0 million midfielder when other mid-priced assets are out-performing him.
Realistically, you want Mo Salah to be a player whom you captain every week, but that’s not the case. His form isn’t good and we’d all rather captain Haaland instead.
Harry Kane who is a lot cheaper would be a decent Mo Salah replacement. Kane’s numbers have been really good so far this season and he’d 100% be a great addition to any FPL squad.
What teams should we target for our GW8 wildcard draft
From the fixture ticker @HollyShand made, we can see that a lot of the smaller teams have easier fixtures, while the fixtures of the big six get a lot tougher.
Teams with positive fixture swing and good FDR (Fixture Difficulty Rating)
- West Ham
- Leicester
- Nott’m Forest
- Bournemouth
- Newcastle
- Everton
- Fulham
- Crystal Palace
Teams with negative fixture swing and bad FDR (Fixture Difficulty Rating)
- Man City
- Wolves
- Aston Villa
- Arsenal
- Man United
- Leeds
- Liverpool
- Chelsea
- Brighton
Well, this is absoultely great for us FPL managers. We now have a pretty good idea of what the fixtures of every team looks like from GW8-GW16(last gameweek before the World Cup).
With this piece of information in mind, we can now start drafting or creating our GW8 wildcard draft.
Some of the best gameweek 8 wildcard drafts
GW8 4-3-3 wildcard draft
This is our first GW8 wildcard team. This team is quiet good on paper and has a lot of players that would come good not only this gameweek, but in future gameweeks,
The team isn’t all that expensive and there’s currently 0.9 million in our bank right now. And that money in the bank could be used to take out some of our Arsenal assets if that’s something you want to do. You could easily swap Martinelli for a Zaha or Saliba for Recce James.
We’ve not gone so big at the back in this draft and we’ve also completely ignored Chelsea and Liverpool assets, which is risky. The reason why we’ve omitted Chelsea assets is because we haven’t seen them play under their new head coach – it’d be hard to recommend any of their assets.
But this team allows for easy swaps. For instance, if you’re not satisfied with Kulusevski you could easily take him out for Luiz Diaz of Liverpool.
And lastly we’ve completely ignored Salah and have gone for two premium forwards in this draft. It’s a pretty decent draft with its own pros and cons.
More GW8 tips:
GW8 captain picks: Mitrovic, Haaland, Jesus, Kane – the best GW8 captains
GW8 4-4-2 wildcard draft
This is another wildcard draft that could be used, right now we’re going with a 4-4-2 formation and this could easily change as we have Recce James and Rashford in our team.
We’ve decided to go for one premium asset in Erling Haaland, doing that allows us to spend and get in so many other players. This draft has a much stronger bench that the first one.
We do need a really strong bench these days. We’ve seen fixtures get postponed and this could happen anytime. And for us to deal or cope with postponed games or injuries, we need a really good bench.
And another good thing about this draft, is that the bench doesn’t affect the quality of the team.
You have a really good team filled with players that have good fixtures and are regular starters for their individual teams. And if you’re not satisfied with the overall team itself, you also have 1.3million in the bank to make any change you want.
Different GW8 wildcard strategies
One strategy you could deploy is that you could go big at the back, but recent gameweeks have shown that, that is not the best of strategies, most especially when forward and midfield players are currently out-performing some of the best premium defenders. So instead of going big at the back, it’d be better to spread your budget across every area of the pitch.
Another strategy that could be used when wildcarding this gameweek would be to go for one premium and try to have a pretty solid bench that could come in handy if there’s a postponed game or some of your players are injured.
For more GW8 FPL draft tips, do make sure to check out this post by all about FPL:
FPL GW8 Wildcard Team & Drafts To Consider | Wildcard Guide
Redeyedrae, is an FPL content writer with years of experience in playing and writing about FPL. He has written for major FPL blogs like ALLABOUTFPL, Fantasytipsters, FF Titans, and nevermanagealone. With his deep knowledge of the game, he has become a trusted source for FPL fans worldwide. His content is well-researched and always up-to-date. He’s passionate about helping FPL managers gain an edge in their leagues by sharing insights and analysis about everything fantasy football on raensports.
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